Midnight's Child
by Angel of the North
Summary: A Slytherin contemplates.


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**Title:** Midnight's Child   
**Author name:** Angel of the North  
**Author email:** miriam@via-caritas.org  
**Category:** General  
**Sub Category:** Angst  
**Keywords:** Slytherin Legilimency Lestrange Snape  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Spoilers:** SS/PS, CoS, PoA, GoF, OoTP, Muggle Studies

**Summary:** "What is your ambition, Miss Lestrange?"  
"Sir?"  
"To be worthy of your name, perhaps, or to redeem it in the eyes of men, or maybe to be so ordinary that you will be swept away in the tide of the unfulfilled desires of lesser hearts and beached by the lacklustre dreams around you."Contains references to self-harm. Also contains french poetry.

**DISCLAIMER:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. Astrid Lestrange belongs to Slytherincess, and is an original character from the Schnoogle series _Muggle Studies_ by Slytherincess. I'm just borrowing, with her permission. The poem is by Verlaine.  


**Author notes:** This fic contains references to Self-Harm, although not cutting. For that reason it may upset people. This may not be canonical with _Muggle Studies_ in the future. Thanks to reviewers, and to Slytherincess for the loan of her creation.  


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**Midnight's Child**

  
_What is your ambition, Miss Lestrange?   
Sir?   
To be worthy of your name, perhaps, or to redeem it in the eyes of men, or maybe to be so ordinary that you will be swept away in the tide of the unfulfilled desires of lesser hearts and beached by the lacklustre dreams around you._

  
_From __Muggle Studies_, by Slytherincess 

Words she knew. Words she'd heard before. Echoes in her nightmares and which pervaded the waking moments that she left unguarded. Her first interview with her head of house came to haunt her repeatedly.

He always did that, kept tabs on the ambitions of his students, either by stealth or by open question. Every student. Each year, he'd make some unobtrusive comment that would show you that he'd been watching you, how you were making your progress towards your stated goals. No obvious congratulation, and the subtler the comment, the greater the praise implied.

And so she had begun. She knew she wasn't like everyone, cooler than the others she was acutely aware of her sorting. The only other to be so acclaimed at been no less than the great Harry Potter when he went to Gryffindor. What Potter was to the Lions, so was Lestrange to the Vipers. A name that conjured the image to go with "Malfoy, Black, Rosier, and Montague." A name with which went the expectations of the house of ambition.

She had known what to expect, of course. You weren't raised in the oldest family only to neglect your heritage, and your lineage. What you chose to do with it was your own concern, but the breeding was there.

She sat in her lesson, writing and erasing the words in the air - to be worthy, to redeem, to disappear, to fail. Words only she could see, listing ideas beyond the scope of her classmates.

The professors changed, and remained the same. All watching, expectantly, for the redeemer, whether her or Potter. She liked it. She liked the feeling of cheating them under their noses. Potter would be corrupted; she was never pure to begin with. She knew that. Her brain didn't. It carried on whirring, as if she was undecided, when the choice had been made since always. She stopped the mental noise by pinching herself, letting her hand find the softest skin on her leg, and giving it the hardest bite she could with her fingers. It stopped dead, letting her focus, just for now on the lesson, and her world subsided into the shared make believe of Hogwarts.

*~--^--~*

A spell, and she is back in the dungeon, listening to her mind, and that of her professor. Just once, she blocks, briefly, the images thrown back to her are of her mother, clear, sharp, beautiful.

And another, a man with matted hair, sat beside the memory room of her mother, sharing the same prison of another man's ideas. She stopped blocking, sliding easily into her thoughts, her professor barely aware of the pause in his search for the spell. Eyes met hers, in shadow and in song, a sound unbidden rising in her mind. A lullaby of sorts to her infant mind.

  
_   
Un vaste et tendre   
Apaisement   
Semble descendre   
Du firmament   
Que l'astre irise ..._

_   
C'est l'heure exquise _

  
The rhythms soothed her, and the world below seemed frozen in time by the moon.

  
_   
Bronze and blue are the daylight hue,   
Red and Gold, the future hold,   
Yellow and Black, to watch your back   
But in moonlight's gleam tis Silver and green that reign supreme._

Doggerel, but one known to the house as truth. Gryffindors might hold the future in their shaping, but the Slytherins knew that they controlled the now, and the why. She didn't see the silly Gryffindor, and sillier Ravenclaw below, but the possibilities.

She wanted him. She would have him. No beauty, the runt of a tall family, but the brightest star yet in the constellation. The others were dying, White Giants with black hearts. Unlike the black giant with a white heart that patrolled below her. Half-Giant. A smirk at her own wit.

The words were drowning her again, she stamped on her foot, cold and numb on the stone. It warmed her a little, so she did it to the other foot. Her hair swung round her legs, loose again.

She brushed it, letting it fall and rise with her breathing. Black eyes gave the impression of a skull in the window, living and dead, calling into purgatory for those souls there remaining.

Shaking, she left the room, perching in the common room, and waiting for the seventh years to come in from Astronomy. He would be there, saying goodbye, and then disappearing among the other Ravenclaws.

--

He stood no chance. He didn't know why, but he did it, letting the chance pass into his hands and not letting go. She was exotic, new, yet familiar as the thestrals at the gate. He gave in, she left him, playing idly with her wand, as if unaware of what she had done.

There is never idle play. It is always for a purpose. A stinging hex, perhaps, or simply sparks on skin.

Something to counteract the rising smell, not strong, but present in her aura.

--

Her professor is there, wanting to speak to her, and this time comes no escape.

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**Author notes:** I'm not trying to make it into Summary Executions. Honest. Otherwise the last line would have been 'Contains references to self harm and french poetry.'

Notes:   
  
1. The quote at the top is actually a line I wrote for MS   
2. The poem is by Verlaine: Full text 

3. Translation: From the heavens seems to come an appeasement, so great, and yet so tender, made iridescent by the star,   
  
An exquisite hour

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